Daesh Leader Still Alive: Iraqi İntelligence Official

By Ibrahim Saleh





An Iraqi intelligence officer said Sunday that Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was still alive.





Last month, the Russian Defense Ministry media said that al-Baghdadi was believed to have been killed in an airstrike in Syria.





U.S. officials, however, said they don't have any proof confirming the Daesh leader's death.





"Al-Baghdadi is still hiding in Syria in an area outside [the northern Syrian province of] Raqqah," Abu Ali al-Basri, the head of the intelligence and anti-terrorism department at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, told the local Al-Sabah newspaper.





He insisted that reports speaking about al-Baghdadi's death were untrue.





The U.S. offers a $25-million bounty for al-Baghdadi, who split from al-Qaeda organization in 2013.





He was last seen in public in 2014 after his group captured Mosul when he announced the creation of the so-called caliphate in both Syria and Iraq.





Last week, Iraqi authorities announced the full liberation of Mosul, the last Daesh stronghold in northern Iraq. -